Abstract
This study was designed to verify the efficacy of garlic extracts for protecting the infecton of influenza and Japanese B encephalitis virus. Influenza virus (AO/PR8 strain) and Japanese B encephalitis virus (JaGAr O1 strain) were used to attack mouse through nasal route and each vaccines were injected subcutaneously. 0.002 and 0.2 mL/day of garlic extracts were orally administered to mice. The blood and serum samples were taken from the mice to measure LD50, Defense Index (DI), virus-neutralizing antibody for comparing virus influence inhibiting activities. Defense indices of the male and female mice were not significantly different at every experiment. Vaccination effectively inhibited the influence of influenza virus and 0.002 mL/day garlic extract (0.55$\pm$0.05) resulted in significantly higher DI than the control (0$\pm$0.05) (p<0.05). Although 0.002 mL/day garlic extract (0.55$\pm$0.05) resulted in significantly lower DI than the vaccination (1.10$\pm$0.05), 0.2 mL/day garlic extract (2.05$\pm$0.05) resulted in 10 times higher DI than the vaccination (1.10$\pm$0.05). Garlic extract did not affect DI in Japanese B encephalitis virus influence of the vaccinated mouse, but significantly reduced DI of the non-vaccinated mouse (p<0.05). Garlic extracts did not affect the production of the neutralizing antibody against influenza by vaccination. However, neutralizing antibody production of Japanese B encephalitis was accelerated by vaccination. Consequently, the current study proved the efficacy of garlic on inhibition of influenza virus. Finally, it is very hard to show the higher preventing effect on flu through ingestion of garlic as a food than vaccination.
